Quitting smoking is notoriously unpleasant. Not only is nicotine highly addictive but the brain is very clever in that it creates billions of little receptors specifically designed to enhance delivery of the stimulant to various parts of the organ. Gritting your teeth through the first 72 hours while nicotine leaves your system is rotten. Continuing to grit for another month while those little receptors starve to death sucks. But I have a nicotine cessation reality that falls outside the norm and turns quitting smoking into terrifying torture: I stop breathing, literally, when I fall asleep.
I don’t mean I miss a breath or two like a hiccup. I flat out stop breathing until I shoot awake grabbing my chest, gasping “I’m having a heart attack, I’m having a heart attack, I’m having a heart attack”. Once awake, it sometimes takes a second or two before I realize that in addition to feeling like my entire chest cavity is being crushed by a vice, I am still not breathing and need to start, stat. Once calm and breathing again, I fall back asleep. And then the issue repeats. And repeats. And repeats.
The problem might have something to do with nicotine receptors that have taken root in my brain stem. If I were an infant whose mother had smoked while I was in utero, I would stand a higher risk of dying from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). But I’m not an infant. I’m an adult. An adult who managed to create this respiratory paradox smoking an average of seven cigarettes a day during a five year relapse after having successfully quit for years.
It is something I used to mention as an aside when I would talk about why I dreaded trying to quit again. It happened a couple of times the last time I quit successfully (i.e. many years smoke free) and it started happening on a long haul flights from Africa once I relapsed. But it has never been as terrifying as the last week. I have stopped breathing at least 25 times since Sunday. Twenty-five separate incidents of being jolted awake gasping and clutching my chest to try to ease the vice.
How much does this suck? I hate smoking and had decided to view each withdrawal pang as a triumphant milestone on the path back to health and full ownership of self. But repeated near-asphyxia is not a withdrawal pang. It is terrifying torture. And even after all nicotine had leached from my body, it continued. Now, until I can find out what exactly is happening, I feel I have no choice but to introduce nicotine into my system because four nights of no sleep coupled with genuinely excruciating pain is pretty much my limit.
It sucks. But I haven’t given up giving up. Even if I have to continue polluting my system with nicotine for the time being (via the patch), this battle is on now. I will win and I will not die trying.
p.s. Nicotine is not the only addiction I have fought in the last six weeks. I have gotten rid of all seriously harmful elements and I have done so because of diaries about Cedwyn and David Nir's wife, among others. Life is short and worth fighting for.